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Spiritual Struggles: What Do They Add to a Christian Positive Psychology?
Julie J. Exline Case Western Reserve University
Presentation for a Meeting of the Society for Christian Psychology entitled Towards a Christian Positive Psychology,
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, Saturday, October 20, 2012
Positive Psychology Summer Institute Sea Ranch, California, 2001
Our host: Dr. Martin Seligman
Our conference center
Our views
But is it possible to be too positive?
Relentless positivity…
can feel forced, inauthentic, or disconnected
can’t capture the beauty of light and shadow
Uniform positivity…
What’s the right amount of ‘light’ to represent our human reality?
Heroic Journeys
have their share of trials…
Heroic Journeys
usually have storms…
And can heroes exist without their villains?
What might a Christian Positive Psychology
look like?
We could just add the “Happy Christian” layer…
forgiveness
Heaven
God’s love
prosperity
But wait! The Bible doesn’t stay cheerful for long…
SIN DEATH
Abraham: A ‘Reasonable’ Request from God?
Biblical Trials of the Israelites
Oppression
Confusion and Idolatry
Temptation and Sin
Exile
New Testament: Suffering and Death of Christ
Persecution of Early Christians
Stoning of Stephen
Paul in chains
Crucifixion of Peter
The Bible doesn’t shy away from struggle!
But we must have seeds of hope…
Is Struggle Worth It?
The Israelites did suffer in the wilderness… But they were on a great journey to the
promised land!
God Uses Our Struggles with Sin
• to help us become “as silver refined”
• or diamonds, formed under pressure.
For Jesus, the cross was not the end!
And in the end, what awaits us?
OK, back to this world…
Religious/Spiritual (R/S) Struggle from a Psychological Perspective
Our Early Attempts to Study R/S
Struggle
• Religious Comfort & Strain Scale (Exline, Yali, & Sanderson, 2000)
• Review chapters/articles (Exline & Rose, 2005; Exline, in press)
• My main focus: anger toward God
Yali Sanderson
Assessment of R/S Struggle
• Ken Pargament and colleagues – Religious coping in response to negative
life events
– Can be positive or negative
– R/S struggle = negative religious coping
– Widely used measures • RCOPE (Pargament, Koenig, & Perez,
2000).
• Brief RCOPE (Pargament, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998).
Empirically, What Do We Know
about R/S Struggle?
What’s Pretty Clear?
• R/S struggles correlate with emotional distress. • many cross-sectional studies (see Exline, in press, for a review)
• In longitudinal studies, r/s struggles predict: – higher mortality rates (Pargament, Koenig, Tarakeshwar, & Hahn, 2001) – more depression (Pirutinsky, Rosmarin, Pargament, & Midlarsky, 2011)
• Chronic struggles show stronger links with emotional distress than short-term struggles (Exline, Park, Smyth, & Carey., 2011; Pargament, Desai, & McConnell, 2006).
Does R/S Struggle Lead to Growth?
• Still UNCLEAR! • Mixed findings (Pargament et al., 2006) • Growth is challenging to measure:
– Character? Faith? Self-perceived growth? • Is it the struggle, or the response to it, that à growth?
Types of Religious and Spiritual Struggle
• Categories are based on a measure now being developed (Religious & Spiritual Struggle Scale; Exline, Pargament, Yali, & Grubbs, in preparation).
• Divine (struggles with God) • Intrapersonal (within the person)
– Guilt – Crises of life meaning – Doubts/questions
• Interpersonal • Demonic
Anger at God
• Common form of divine struggle (Exline, Park, Smyth, & Carey, 2011)
• Often seen as morally wrong (Exline, Kaplan, & Grubbs, 2012)
• Sample items: – Felt angry at God – Felt as though God had abandoned me
Anger at God: Can It Foster Growth?
• Honest disclosure may increase intimacy with God. (Exline, Kaplan, & Grubbs 2012; Hall & Edwards, 2002)
• Challenge old or simplistic ideas about God
Intrapersonal I: Guilt
• Struggle to follow moral or spiritual principles
• Examples: – worried that my actions were
morally or spiritually wrong – felt guilty for not living up to my
moral standards
Guilt: What Good Is It?
• Reality-based awareness of sin • Can encourage repentance, reconciliation
with God & others
Intrapersonal II: Crises of Life
Meaning
• Spirituality often involves a sense of deeper meaning in life
• Struggle as absence of meaning
• Sample items: – felt as though my life had no deeper meaning – questioned whether life really matters
Crises of Life Meaning: Where’s the Hope?
• see the emptiness of the world’s values (e.g., materialism; social climbing)
• seek God’s deeper purpose for your life
Intrapersonal III: Doubt and Confusion
• doubts/questions about beliefs
• implies distress (confusion, worry)
• sample items: – worried about whether my beliefs
about religion/spirituality were correct
– felt confused about my religious/spiritual beliefs
Doubt and Confusion: Possible Benefits?
• Cultivate critical thinking • Clarify what we truly believe vs. what
we’ve simply been told
Interpersonal
• Discord with other people or institutions re: religious issues
• Sample items: – had conflicts with other people
about religious/spiritual matters – felt hurt, mistreated, or offended by
religious/spiritual people
• Learn power of love, courage, patience, humility, forgiveness…we may all need this “sandpaper.”
• When religious systems become corrupt, you may be called to be part of the solution.
Interpersonal Struggles with Religion:
How Can They Help Us?
Demonic/ Supernatural Evil
• Belief that devil or evil spirits are attacking us or causing negative events
• Understudied (despite RCOPE subscale) • Sample items:
– worried that the problems I was facing were the work of the devil or evil spirits
– felt attacked by the devil or by evil spirits
• If Satan is indeed active in the world, isn’t it better to be aware of it?
• Practice spiritual warfare
Demonic Appraisals: What Purpose Might They
Serve?
Conclusion
If struggle is indeed a
catalyst for growth… or an important part of
life’s journey…
…then it has a place in Christian positive psychology.
Empirical work is
still in the early stages.
References Exline, J. J. (in press). Religious and spiritual struggles. In K. I. Pargament, J. J.
Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Volume 1). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Exline, J. J., Kaplan, K. J., & Grubbs, J. B. (2012, March 19). Anger, exit, and assertion: Do people see protest toward God as morally acceptable? Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027667
Exline, J. J., Park, C. L., Smyth, J. M., & Carey, M. P. (2011). Anger toward God: Social-cognitive predictors, prevalence, and links with adjustment to bereavement and cancer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 129-148.
Exline, J. J., & Rose, E. (2005). Religious and spiritual struggles. In R. F. Paloutzian and C. L.Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 315-330). New York: Guilford.
Exline, J. J., Yali, A. M., & Sanderson, W. C. (2000). Guilt, discord, and alienation: The role of religious strain in depression and suicidality. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56, 1481-1496.
Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (2002). The spiritual assessment inventory: A theistic model and measure for assessing spiritual development. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 341-357.
References (cont.) Pargament, K. I., Desai, K. M., & McConnell, K. M. (2006). Spirituality:
A pathway to posttraumatic growth or decline? In L. G. Calhoun & R. G. Tedeschi (Eds.), Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research & practice (pp. 121-137). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56, 519–543.
Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., Tarakeshwar, N., & Hahn, J. (2001). Religious struggle as a predictor of mortality among medically ill elderly patients: A two-year longitudinal study. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 1881-1885.
Pargament, K. I., Smith, B. W., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. (1998). Patterns of positive and negative religious coping with major life stressors. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 710–724.
Pirutinsky, S., Rosmarin, D.H., Pargament, K.I., & Midlarsky, E. (2011). Does negative religious coping accompany, precede, or follow depression among Orthodox Jews? Journal of Affective Disorders, 132(3), 401-405.